Hot Rodding, Then and Now

In his early years Butch Salter was an avid midget race car fan and seldom missed a midget race Lakeside Speedway in Denver .  He was interested in all aspects of racing when he attended his first drag race at Denver ’s Lowry Air Force Base as a spectator.  He joined the DTA in 1954.  It was during this period the DTA meetings were held in the Democratic Club in downtown Denver .  He joined the Strippers Car Club a short time later.  When the DTA became active again in 1998 he rejoined as many of the old members did.

In 1955 Butch worked with the Hot Rod Magazine Drag Safari while they were in Denver .  For his work he was presented with an award of merit from the Safari...... something he treasures to this day.

In ‘57 he began drag racing in a fenderless and channeled Model “A” roadster.  It was powered by a four banger Model “A” engine running a Cragar head and dual Stromberg 97 carbs.  It was common for these early 4 bangers to trounce an early Ford V8 at top speed as well as drag racing.  He entered it in the X Roadster class in the ‘57 Drag Racing Nationals at Great Bend , Kansas .  The roadster blistered the asphalt and was fastest in his class.  He was his class eliminator.  Quite a feat for a first time homebuilt job.

In ‘58 he built a dragster.  (During that period of time, no one manufactured a dragster chassis.  It was some years later before they became available.)  In ’58 they were normally built by the owner and required a lot of hard work and lots of good old hot rod ingenuity.  Butch’s dragster used a narrowed early Ford rear end he built.  He still has this rear end today.  It was one of the first narrowed rear ends in the Rocky Mountain area.  These narrowed rear ends, combined with the appearance of the rest of the chassis, soon led to these types of dragsters becoming known as “slingshot” dragsters.  He ran the same hot Cragar headed Model “A” engine from his roadster for power.  He competed with this unit to ‘62 with his best speed of 105 mph and an elapsed time of 12 seconds using nitro methane fuel.

In ‘62 he and Alan Bockla (a local speed shop owner) joined forces using Butch’s chassis and Alan’s blown (supercharged) small block 340" Chev.  They were together only one race season. Butch bought the blown Chev engine from Alan.  The forced induction system from this engine is still being used today at Bonneville!  Now that’s reliability.

He ran this combination until 1966 when the clutch exploded and shredded the bell housing.  The explosion ballooned the rails of the dragster severely and flying shrapnel finished the dragster’s rails.  He stripped the dragster and kept all the running gear, wheels, and tires.  He still has them today.... talk about a stash of old time goodies!

In 1968 he teamed up with Danny Brown.  They used Butch’s 327" Chev engine in Danny’s digger and ran as a team through the end of the 1970 season.  At the end of the 1968 season they were the #4 qualifier in their field in the World Finals.  They were classified as BB/D dragster and turned a very respectable 163 mph with an elapsed time of 8.58 seconds.  The very next run following this qualifying run they holed a piston due to lean out.  They discussed driving back to Denver and getting another engine (Butch had a fresh 327" Chev all ready to run) but talked themselves out of it.  Too bad since the engine later proved to be even faster than the one that blew up!  They ended the meet as spectators.

At the end of the 1970 season he bought the digger from Danny and raced it in 1971 and 1972.  At the end of the 1972 season, NHRA eliminated the BB/D dragster class.

In 1976 he teamed up with Danny again and bracket-raced their digger.  At the end of the season, Butch turned his attention to family matters.  The blown engine sat in the corner of his garage collecting dust instead of its usual trophies.

In 1992 his good friend Bob Marchese called and said he had the bug to go to Bonneville and did Butch want to go?  Naturally Butch was up to a trip to the Mecca of speed (who wouldn’t be?).  They attended the Bonneville Speed Week as spectators to see what it was all about.  Guess what.... they were both bitten by the Bonneville Salt Bug!  On the way home Bob said he had the beginnings of a roadster and was in need of an engine and transmission.  Butch still had his old blower motor.  They were a team before they ever got home!  In my opinion, they both do some of the very finest quality work and engineering I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing.  Bob had an old deuce frame and found a glass 1929 roadster body.  They spent many long nights and weekends in the garage building their Bonneville roadster.  Bob and Butch are both machinists by trade and they machined all the special items needed for the hot rod.  The engine was Butch’s 327 Chev with a roller cam and a 471 blower running 30% overdrive.  They elected to not run fuel at the beginning.  Instead they stuck with gasoline while they were sorting out the rod.  The rear end was a Ford 9" with 3.00:1 gears.  As with all hot rodders, time grew short way too fast.  And, as usual, some late night thrashing was necessary to finish the roadster in time for the 1993 SCTA (Southern California Timing Association) meet at the famous Bonneville Salt Flats .  But heavy rains at the Flats caused the meet to be cancelled.  Talk about a disappointment after all those late nights!

But in 1994 the weather Gods looked kindly down on the two aspiring salt racers.  Finally the big day came and they were on their way with their roadster on a trailer.  At Bonneville, the roadster was classified as C/BGR (Blown Gas Roadster) with the 327 engine.  The C/BGR class had a sizzling 238 mph record!  Some challenge for the untested new hot rod.  The roadster had turned out lighter than originally figured..... lighter is faster, right?  Depends.  This would prove to be a problem at the top end.  Their first main goal would be to break the 200 mph mark.  This is very difficult due in some classes due to the lack of streamlining permitted.  The rules do not allow any streamlining in their roadster class.

With their lack of streamlining, it’s been compared to pushing a brick through a thick cement slurry! They didn’t run 200 mph during their first year at the salt.  Kenz & Leslie BG Lubricants soon became their sponsor.  Butch said he is very grateful to Ronnie Leslie for his continued assistance over the years.

During the winter of ‘94-’95 Butch built a new engine using a 305 Chev engine.  He used the same induction system he’d purchased from Alan Bockla many years previously.  This decrease in cubic inches moved them to the D/BGR class.  They set a class record of 186.156 mph at this meet.  Pretty neat.  BUT they both became members of the Salt Flat’s infamous “360 club”.  The only way to join this “elite” Bonneville club is to spin out a car in the traps.  Butch managed to spin out at 174 mph.  Bob showed Butch how to do it correctly by spinning out at 191 mph.  There isn’t much traction on the salt and nothing to hit unless you stray off the course and get involved with a salt pond or a ridge of salt.  (I’m sure something ran up their necks while they spun around and around and around.... seeing the same mountains again and again and again!)

During the learning period associated with any new car they were plagued with the roadster wanting to spin out on the top end.  Finally, after a few Bonneville meets, and a score or more of runs, they figured it out.... the car needed more weight…. a lot more.  Seems a roadster has to weigh somewhere around 5000 pounds (!) to keep the rear wheels from lifting and causing spinouts. After some innovative work by the pair during the off-season, the car finally ran straight and true.  The high boy roadster has made 69 runs on the salt (A TOTAL IN EXCESS OF 266 MILES..... AT WIDE OPEN THROTTLE!).  Talk about dependability of a hot rod!

The 305 engine is turned 8000 rpm through the gears.  The rpm through the traps is in the 7200-7400 range with their present gears and tires.  They have set records of 186.156 mph, 190.907 mph, and 193.468 mph in their class.  Records are an average of two runs made back to back within a very limited time frame.  They currently hold the D/BGR record at 197.374 mph set at Speed Week 2000.  Their fastest one-way speed is 198.818 mph.  All runs were made on gas.  But they still hadn’t broke the 200 mph barrier.

For the next to the last run in 2000 they ingested a small screw through the induction system and into the engine.  A compression leak down test showed it had injured, at the very least, a couple of valves.  They decided to “go for broke” and try running some fuel for their last run to see if the additional horsepower would help break the 200 mph barrier.  They tipped the nitro jug “just a splash” for a 20% mix.  However, the engine didn’t take kindly to the combination of damage by the small screw and the more potent nitro mix.... it let loose in the traps.

As of this writing Butch and Bob have an additional partner for the upcoming 2001 Bonneville Speed Week. They’ll run a normally aspirated mill (no blower) which puts them in a different class (with a larger cubic inch displacement).  With the new member’s exotic heads and engines, they think there is a very good chance the roadster will finally get over the elusive 200 mph hump.  The record in their new class is 216 mph!

Butch stated his Bonneville experience has been the highlight of his racing career.  Butch says “Bonneville is a special place and we have made a lot of friends who have become very special to us.  It is especially gratifying when a person such as Nick Arias, of the Arias Piston Company, after spending some time looking over and checking out the roadster in great detail, told us it was one of the nicest and best engineered salt roadsters he’d ever seen!”

As I said earlier, they both do exceptional quality work.

postscript:  I wrote this article in February of 2001.  During the 2001 speed week, each of the exotic heads/engines blew on their very first run.  Seems they made good hp and had no problem on the dyno, but they had a violent way of showing they didn’t like running flat out at Bonneville!

Butch and Bob decided it was too getting too expensive on the way home from Bonneville.  Butch pulled his engine and Bob sold the roadster.  It’s being run at Bonneville by its new owner.  Butch has finally got his Model A street rod on the road.